THE LAKE VILLAGE 197 



and wild duck. Seen at that distance they appeared 

 like clouds of starlings in the evening at their winter 

 roosting haunts. Presently the clouds dispersed or 

 settled on the water again, and for a little space it 

 seemed a silent world. Then a new sound was heard 

 from some distant spot perhaps a mile away — a 

 great chorus of wild ringing jubilant cries, echoing 

 and re-echoing all over that illimitable watery ex- 

 panse; and I knew it was the crane — the giant crane 

 that hath a trumpet sound! 



These birds were all very real to me, seen very 

 vividly, their voices so loud and clear that they 

 startled and thrilled me; but the long-haired brown- 

 skinned marsh-man who was my boatman was seen 

 less distinctly. The anthropological reader will be 

 disappointed to learn that no clear image was retained 

 of his height, build, features, and the colour of his 

 eyes and hair, and that the sense of all his wild jabber 

 and gestures has quite gone out of my memory. 



From all this greatness of wild-bird life, seen in a 

 vision, I returned to reality and to very small things ; 

 one of which came as a pleasant surprise. I went on 

 to the Cheddar valley and near Winscombe I dropped 

 in on an old friend, a writer and a lover of birds, who 

 had built himself a charming bungalow among the 

 Mendips. We had tea on the terrace, a nice cool rose- 

 and creeper-shaded place after my long hot ramble, 

 a green lawn beneath us, with a row of large pine 

 trees on its other side. My friend was telling me of 

 a flock of crossbills which to his delight had been 

 haunting the place for some days past, when lo! 



